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EDMONTON - Despite an early pledge to regularly update voters on who is funding their re-election campaign, the Progressive Conservatives have not released any information about the financial backers of Alison Redford’s bid to return to the premier’s office.

Days before the provincial election was called, Tory campaign strategist Stephen Carter committed to publicly sharing information about donors throughout the campaign, adding, “We want to be as open and transparent as possible.”

This week, repeated requests for a list of donors went unfulfilled.

“Our office right now is just overwhelmed with receiving and processing the contributions that are coming in. We want to disclose as soon as possible,” said Bill Smith, president of the Progressive Conservative Association. “We’re in the process of verifying (donations) and that just takes a little bit of time.”

The Alberta Liberals, who also committed to providing up-to-date information on donors, released a list Tuesday of 24 people and companies who have donated more than $375.01 to the party since the election was called. Drawing on donations from Cenovus Energy Inc., Atco, Maclab Enterprises, TransAlta, Enbridge Pipelines, and a handful of individuals, the Liberals have raised $53,100 from major donors.

“Transparency’s important,” Liberal campaign manager Corey Hogan said. “In the middle of the election, you can get money from all sorts of people. If (voters) don’t get that information until a month down the road, after the votes have already been cast, that doesn’t do you any good as a voter. It’s important to know where the money came from.”

MacEwan University political scientist Chaldeans Mensah said the promise of contribution transparency may have been unrealistic in a hotly contested election that demands parties throw everything they have at persuading potential voters.

“It sounds good in the context of trying to portray yourself as a party that is trying to do politics differently, but it ignores the fact that the details of actually implementing that could sidetrack” organizers, Mensah said. “It’s part of a reactive approach to politics, trying to score political points without carefully analyzing the consequences of your promises. I think the electorate is becoming a bit jaded and they want politicians to make promises that they can keep.”

Hogan said it was not difficult to make the Liberals’ list of donors public.

“If you’re doing basic bookkeeping, you stay on top of these things,” he said.

Hogan said he was not surprised the Tories “would say one thing and do another,” but when it comes to being able to release a list of donors, “I would certainly hope that the party in government right now knows how to keep an up-to-date ledger.”

A recent Journal analysis of political contributions showed the Progressive Conservatives took in about $15 million in cash and valued donations between 2004 and 2010, far more than the other major political parties. In the same period, the Wildrose brought in about $2.4 million and the Liberals $2.8 million.

But 2011 figures, which have not yet been finalized by Elections Alberta, show the Wildrose party made significant gains. Last year, the Wildrose reported donations of $2.7 million while the Progressive Conservatives said they raised $3.4 million. The Liberals raised $593,000.

By law, political parties do not have to file details of their campaign fundraising until six months after election day.

“We’ll be complying with election law and making all of our donors and all of our information available,” said Vitor Marciano, a Wildrose candidate for the senate and a campaign spokesman. “We’re kind of busy right now with the election.”

Neither the Wildrose nor the NDP had committed to providing lists of donors before the vote. Asked this week, the NDP declined to make their contributors’ list public because of staffing issues.

During an online leaders’ debate co-hosted by the Journal and Calgary Herald, Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith noted the Tories’ failure to disclose campaign donors and asked if that failure was an example of “another broken promise.”

In her responses, Redford wrote, “We have and will keep all of our commitments.”

Marciano said whether Albertans would benefit from more transparent contributions laws would be a policy issue for the next government to determine.

Tory party president Bill Smith said he would prefer not to see a change in legislation that would make campaign contributions public ahead of voting day, in part because those lists would not reflect the donations that come in after voting day but are still part of disclosures to Elections Alberta.

“During an election campaign, you’ve got all of your people just so busy, trying to get the campaign, and you’ve got your people raising money ... and get your bills paid, and all of the issues that arise on a daily basis,” Bill Smith said. “From an operational standpoint, I’d rather not do it, but ... if the legislation was there, we’d make provisions to do it.”

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